Have wheels, have sat nav, will travel - and will still get lost

Jon and I made our way, on Saturday 19th April, to the Midlands so that we could attend the Entomological Society show on Sunday being held at Kettering. As I wrote before, we were mixing the trip with a visit to my mother, who lives in Rutland – not many miles from the venue – and were taking her along for a day out.

After an exasperating episode with our satellite navigation system, we eventually found the Leisure Centre in Kettering where the show was being held. However, this was not really the sat nav’s fault. Unfortunately, it would seem that from up in the distant sky the route was seen to be a road, but in reality, it didn’t actually exist anymore, having been cut off with a couple of strategically placed bollards. After a couple of ‘round the houses’ tours, with the sat nav constantly insisting that it take us across this ‘no access’ route, we decided to head on back to the main road and see if it adjusted itself.

We were, by now, already quite late (well not late really, but Jon was hoping to be able to speak to some people before the doors opened for the public). Then came the unfortunate mis-timing of a very loud yell from the venerable Mother Nature and we had to divert again to find the station so that Jon could answer, what was becoming, a rather urgent call of the diabetic variety.

We got there eventually, however, and, most importantly before the doors opened. We did not take long to sort out our stall and soon we had all our Exotic Pet magazines on display. We were pleased that several people took out subscriptions and it was nice to come back with considerably less issues that we had left Woolsery with the day before. It was great to meet some of our subscribers too, along with some of those who have submitted articles for the magazine.

The venue was held in a huge sports hall, which facilitated ease of movement around the many stalls inside. We were sharing our stall with Graham and Janice Smith – Metamorphosis – and it would seem that there was a good ‘turn out’ of the public. Sometimes you can feel quite claustrophobic at these events, but this one being held in such a large area meant that there were no large bunch ups of people around the stalls, or through the walkways between.

Jon bought some more stick insects and some silkmoth caterpillars (which are currently chomping their way through the greenery in the garden and getting bigger and fatter by the day it seems), but I was very good and did not purchase anything. I had been sorely tempted by a couple of things, but was very strict with myself. Readers of my blog will remember that I was going to leave my money behind this time and resist all temptation, and I am proud of myself for doing just that.

My mother seemed to enjoy her day out and was fascinated by some of the creatures on sale, but would not entertain buying any – no matter how much Jon tried to persuade her!

It was interesting, and somewhat amusing, to learn, also, that someone else had endured the same frustrations as us with their own sat nav – but from what I understand, their machine did not fare so well in the survival stakes from its frustrating actions!